CCS Journal is published under the auspices of UTSePress, Sydney, Australia 63 The Reconfiguration of Civil Society through Ethnic Communal Development

The large scale post-war migration impacted beyond the change of the demographic structure of Australia. The dynamics of migration impact is also felt beyond the immediate intent of particular ethnic communal developments in a place of settlement. Migration affected civil society in Australia too. Civil society is not a given good (Keane 1998, p.49) as it is also grounded in exogenous factors that are in this case identified as immigration effects. Cosmopolitan features of Australian cities have their foundations in fragmented ethnic voluntary collective actions. These social effects of post-war migration are contextualised through analysis of the diverse impacts and consequences of migrant collective acts undertaken to satisfy their own perceived needs through appropriation of communal places in Sydney. This article explores that part of the ‘ethnic third sector’ that relates to the activities of ethnic community organisations who established a place (building) where the religious, educational, recreational or welfare needs of immigrant communities in Australia were met. Utilising the concepts of bonding and bridging social capital to explore the social relations that developed in these migrant places and spaces, this article thus attempts to explore an important chapter in story of how post-war migrants have contributed to civil society in Australia